Why follow a religion made up by Martin Luther in 1500 and not Christ himself?

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No, I’m not mixed up. There is a popular conspiracy theory to the effect that the princes were still alive when Henry VII took over and that he murdered them.

If Henry didn’t murder Edward V, then presumably Richard did. Which would mean, logically, that if Henry’s reign was illegitimate (because he killed Richard in battle) then Richard’s was illegitimate because he killed Edward V (treacherously, being sworn to protect him). Or are you claiming that Edward V died a natural death?

It seems to me that this kind of extreme legitimism would, in the end, undermine any monarchy whatsoever. Of course if there are two rivals, one supports the more legitimate one. But are you seriously maintaining that for a monarch’s reign to be legitimate all his predecessors must have come to power in a legitimate way? Or is there a statute of limitations?

I suppose you would say that Henry IV wasn’t the legitimate monarch either (I forget the exact chain of descent from Richard II to Richard of York [Sr.], but I know there was a connection). But what about William I? Do you buy that whole “Edward promised me the throne” business as a foundation for legitimacy?

And you still haven’t told me who the legitimate heir was after the death of Richard III.

Edwin
Alot of people believe Richard was guilty of the murder (he was NOT), I have never heard anyone accuse Tudor Sr. of the supposed crime. Yes Edward V died a natural death and Richard III was his legitimate successor. The supporters of Michael Hastings claim that Edward IV was illegitimate and therefore the Duke of Clarence was the legitimate king and his line is now Hastings. I don’t have alot of interest in English matters but Tudor Jr. is a particular point of contention with me.
WP
 
**What about Queen Mary, she was a devoted Catholic and cannot stand protestant at all, she was called bloody Mary because of her cruelty, for she wanted England to be a Catholic Empire thus she ordered the execution of protestant. She even wanted to kill her cousin Queen Elizerbeth I. If not because of Mary intolerance against the protestant , the royal Kings/Queen of England till date would simply free to marry a Catholic and not the other way round, who ever next in line to the throne are not allow to marry a Catholic else you shall be taken off from the accession. **
I didn’t mention Mary because we weren’t talking about Catholic persecution of Protestants, the reality of which was not being disputed.

I’m not sure Mary was any more cruel than any other Tudor monarch–perhaps less so. I don’t think she wanted to kill Elizabeth–if she had wanted to I doubt anyone would have stopped her. Killing Elizabeth would actually have been politically smart–just as Elizabeth’s execution of Mary Queen of Scots was reprehensible but politically smart.

Mary’s actions were not the direct reason for the exclusion of Catholics from the succession, though they did provide Protestant propaganda with lots of fuel and hence helped to set in motion the train of events that led to the final exclusion of Catholics 100 years later. The immediate cause, however, was the birth of a son to the last Catholic monarch of England and Scotland, James II/VII (at least the last to rule–his descendants of course continued to claim to be the true monarchs) in 1688. This sparked a Protestant coup which put James’s daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William of Orange on the throne. Parliament then passed a law excluding all Catholics from the throne.

Ironically, James had actually passed an Act of Toleration that applied to dissenting Protestants as well as to Catholics. So it was in fact the *tolerance *(though with undoubted political rather than principled motivation) not the *intolerance *of a Catholic monarch that led to the final exclusion of Catholics from the throne.

Edwin
 
Here is a little piece which I wrote for Siol nan Gaidheal last year concerning Henry Tudor Jr.🙂 Enjoy.
WP

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England
britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon41.html
royal.gov.uk/output/Page19.asp
Henry Tudor Jr. was a ruthless scoundrel
best known for the murder of his wives, his eating habits, playing
dice and being a general waste of DNA. Henry was the man responsible
for the death of James IV and the brave men at Flodden Field and was
no friend to the Scots, he was the son of the Henry Tudor the self
declared English King and Elizabeth of York the turncoat sister of
Richard III, the true King of England. Henry VIII was known not only
for his ruthlessness but also for his delusion that he was a religious
leader, his bad personal hygiene and the fact that his voice was much
like that of a woman. Henry blessed the world with his passing on 28
January 1547 of unknown causes but rumoured to be a result of his
syphilis. Good Riddance to Henry Tudor Jr.!
Deo Vindice
WP
 
The “heresy” exists because it is taught in opposition to the Truth. That does not make you a heretic if you actually do not know the truth. No problem there

Luther was a heretic, and all indication is that he died a heretic. But only God really knows his heart.

But you should not object if a Catholic referes to any heretical teachings as heresy. They are what they are.

As for Romanist… so what.? The Church of England did use the name to insult the Catholic Church. Even they knew that the Catholic Church had its head in Rome, and was distinct from the Orthodox. The Church of England wanted the name Catholic (Universal) for their own use, thus their attempt to rename the True Church. It developed into a simple Roman adjective, and it stuck.

I am Catholic, Roman Rite… and you can call me Roman Catholic if you like.😉

.
Got it.

It’s okay for you to be uncharitable in dialogue.

For my part, I won’t return the favor. I’ll try to maintain civil discourse. Regardless of whether an offensive appellation is accurate or not, I won’t use it. Though you may find me unwilling to interact with you.

I cannot stand a triumphalist, such a person is little beter than a schoolyard bully.

A clear conscience is its own reward.
 
No, that’s misleading. Calvinism, Zwinglianism, and Anglicanism were not distinct confessions; they did not anathematize each other or construct confessions designed to exclude each other. Calvinism and Zwinglianism were distinct theological positions within a broad coalition of Reformed churches, of which early “Anglicanism” was simply the English expression. By the end of the century Calvinism and Zwinglianism had clearly merged, while Anglicanism was developing a separate identity through its rejection of the radical “Calvinism” fo the Puritans. But there was never a time when Calvinism, Zwinglianism, and Anglicanism existed as separate entities over against each other.

One of the things Catholics often fail to understand about early Protestantism is that it was regional and (except for the “radicals”) largely dependent on government action (Catholics are of course quick to cite this latter point to discredit Protestantism, but they don’t think through the implications of this as opposed to modern “denominationalism”). Most Protestant churches were simply the state church in a particular area, which had undertaken certain reforms based on one or another school of Protestant theology. It took a while for these various regional churches to sort themselves out into distinct confessions, by which time you had two main groups–Lutherans and Reformed–with Anglicanism more and more distinguishing itself from both as a “via media” (originally a via media between the Lutherans and Reformed, later on, at least according to some, a via media between Protestantism as a whole and Catholicism).

The Mennonites were the major organized expression of the Anabaptist movement by the later part of the century, but there were always multiple radical groups running around. It’s interesting that you exaggerate the disunity of the state-church Protestants and vastly underestimate the disunity of the radicals. The proliferation of sects has always been a function of the radical wing of Protestantism–it’s just that this “free church” wing has become bigger and more important with each century, so that now it’s no longer a radical wing but the dominant expression of Protestantism. And, of course, with the lack of a state church in the U.S. even the formerly state-church traditions have tended to imitate the free churches, including their tendency to splinter.
You know, I don’t mean to be disrespectful in any way but your posts are extremely long and drawn out. This isn’t rocket science. speak in layman’s terms so people may understand you.
The Catholic church has been placed on the chopping block so many times. Too often men weilding swords of heresy have hacked away at the bride of Christ. their tongues are two-edged swords. they claim to represent Christ but these wolves in sheep’s clothing are blinded by Satan. Using god’s name for their own ends, they convince many to fllow them, never understanding their own blindness. when they explain passages in the bible, many times they distort them. So as not to disclose their fraud, they conveniently never mention the verse “UNLESS YOU EAT MY BODY AND DRINK MY BLOOD, YOU CANNOT HAVE LIFE WITHIN YOU.” In Matthew 7:15 “Watch out for the false prophets. They come in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” they have taken the one true teaching and confused it.
One church is the true Church and that Church always has the Chair of Peter to lead it. the others are in violation of Holy Scripture. The Lord’s teaching is explicit in Matthew:13
“DO NOT SEPERATE THE WHEAT FROM THE WEEDS.”
May God grant you the grace of understanding.
 
You know, I don’t mean to be disrespectful in any way but your posts are extremely long and drawn out. This isn’t rocket science. speak in layman’s terms so people may understand you.
No one asks you to read my posts, stefany. When addressing you, I will try to keep things simple as you ask. When speaking to other people, who may enjoy more detail, I will speak as I think appropriate. History may not be rocket science, but it is plenty complicated if you really want to understand it accurately.

Edwin
 
You know, I don’t mean to be disrespectful in any way but your posts are extremely long and drawn out. This isn’t rocket science. speak in layman’s terms so people may understand you.
I actually like his posts very much-- even if I don’t always agree with his conclusions. In fact, I wish more people posted their thoughts as clearly as Contarini did.

Then again, my posts tend to be long too.

However, in his defence, I don’t think anyone will misunderstand Contarini’s position on these matters. Likewise, I think a critical and unbiased understanding of Church history is probably more complicated than rocket science in some ways.

It’s certainly not as black & white as some make it out to be.
 
No one asks you to read my posts, stefany. When addressing you, I will try to keep things simple as you ask. When speaking to other people, who may enjoy more detail, I will speak as I think appropriate. History may not be rocket science, but it is plenty complicated if you really want to understand it accurately.

Edwin
Figures you would just respond to two lines out of all this. I am not asking for simplicity, but just not rederick.
 
Actually, you guys broke off from the Orthodox Church in the eleventh century.
You guys were the first Protestants.
That comment is absolutely typical of the followers of Luthers religion… It makes those of us who follow Christianity, feel better.

There had historically been one of two differences between Orthodox and Catholic. They broke with us iin 1288. This was healed. But another ‘event’ occured and it remains unhealed. Ihhave faith in God it will be one day.

Now I know that some Prodestants are genuine believers in Christ. BUt some are not. Some have even invented their own Christ. Such as JW’s and SDA who come from JW’s
 
That comment is absolutely typical of the followers of Luthers religion… It makes those of us who follow Christianity, feel better.

There had historically been one of two differences between Orthodox and Catholic. They broke with us iin 1288. This was healed. But another ‘event’ occured and it remains unhealed. Ihhave faith in God it will be one day.

Now I know that some Prodestants are genuine believers in Christ. BUt some are not. Some have even invented their own Christ. Such as JW’s and SDA [who come from JW’s
Six,

It wasn’t really a serious comment.

Just an effort to kind of shock you into looking at it a different way, to crack the veneer of your collective jingoism as it were.

This is not what Protestants say, it’s what the Orthodox say.

And my point was that in the real, real world; the one beyond cyberspace, there’s enough acrimony and accusation to go around for everyone.
[/quote]
 
Stefany:

A lot of misinformation exists regarding religious persecution of both Protestants and Catholics. A demeaning attitude doesn’t help. At best, I think you owe Contarini an apology.

O+
 
I am sorry to inform you that Lourdes this and Fatima that and Guadalupe this certainly sounds a bit lame to me as you put it. I bet you never even read or researched these magnificent apparitions of Our Blessed Mother.

You lose - not that I can prove that 🙂 I’ve read of all three; I think I have about half-a-dozen books on Fatima, & two books of messages from Medugorje.​

But none of these is central to Christian faith, none of them must be believed, & one is not a better or worse Catholic for believing or not believing they are genuine. ##
80,000 people witnessed the miracle of Fatima. Are you saying 80,000 people are wrong?

It’s not as unlikely as it may seem - thousands of people believed in the “angels of Mons”, which were “seen” in 1914: worldwar1.com/heritage/angel.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons
There are numerous documentations and facts from centuries ago of these apparitions.

So they can’t be tested; so the truth of them would now be very hard to establish. At least modern visionaries can be interviewed & tested & psycho-analysed. A single trustworthy witness is worth a thousand that are not. Mere numbers prove nothing. Nor does being widely believed - fables can be believed by thousands, even if they grow from little.​

There are problems with Fatima:
  • if the sun had danced, this would have dislocated the solar system. Whatever happened, that did not.
  • the conversion of Russia was promised unconditionally - this is difficult, because the conversion of the world was not attached unconditionally to Calvary
  • On October 13 1917, the Lady told Lucia the war was ending that day - which it did not.
    There are too many unanswered questions about Fatima - IMO, Lourdes is much more credible
I’m not saying the mother of God never appears & never has - but there are so many alleged apparitions, so many lying prophecies, & there is so much sheer silliness in most of them (do people really think she would appear in a shop-window ?) that they convict themselves of being false; no doubters need try doing so. The slightest critical sense would expose these fables for the nonsense they are. Most are mere curiosities, which do nothing for piety except incidentally.

And “visions” which encourage disobedience to the authority of the Church - not patience under wrongs, deserved or not, nor humility, but disobedience - are also self-convicted. These are nothing new - the Schism of 1378-1417 was kept alive by such things. ##
They are occurring today in Medjugorgie, Yugoslavia. I was there.

I too used to think they were genuine - but they talk too much: definitely a bad sign.​

There have been millions of converts that came back.

That is no reason to think they are genuine apparitions - apparitions can perfectly well have good effects as a result of what is good in them, & yet not be genuine. Just as books which are in part unsatisfactory in doctrine can have excellent effects upon the reader even so.​

Read Our Lady of Guadalupe, how the man she appeared to, Juan Diego, and left a sign in his cloak that hangs today there from centuries ago. the The Aztec Indians converted, 3 million of them. I just started a thread about The Rosary. The Rosary is the most powerful weapon we have against Satan and sin.

What’s wrong with the Eucharist ? Or is the Body of Christ less effective than the rosary ? And what about the Bible ? Without that, we would know next to nothing about the life of Christ, or His excellent dignity as Messiah & Saviour & Lord & Redeemer. The rosary can give us only the outline of Him - the Bible gives both that, & much of the detail too. I can live without the Rosary - but not without the inspired Word of God in Scripture. Above all, we need the Holy Spirit - & Him, God Alone can provide. Without Him, neither Rosary nor Bible nor Sacraments are worth anything; but must be dead things.​

The Rosary is taken from The Bible itself.

Most of it is - “Holy Mary…our death” is not; neither are the two last Glorious Mysteries; neither is the Gloria.​

you say nobody needs pilgramages? My friend was taken to Lourdes where he was cured from terminal cancer. Correct, we do not need to go find Jesus b/c He is right here, but you cannot explain all the miracles where Our Lady has appeared.

You’ve conceded my point - thank you very much 😃 If miracles are genuine, they are the work of God always; sometimes, He works them through created beings.​

The Church is cautious about such matters, and so are the theologians. So I try to be too. ##
 
If we denied the title king to every monarch of bad character, the lists would be quite sparse.

Henry VIII reigned as king of England, so of course I’m going to refer to him as such, as all historians do. I have no particular interest at this distance of time in the question whether he was the legitimate monarch or not. But just for the fun of it, if Henry VII was not the true king, who was? Are you one of those people who thinks that Henry Tudor murdered the Princes in the Tower? If so, who was the rightful king *after *the death of Edward V?

Edwin

P.S. Interesting discussion board you link to. Is “Bretwalda” the term you guys use for the P.M.? Is “the Saxon kingdom” England, or the U.K. generally? Are you claiming that Scotland was not dominated by Saxons before the Union of 1707?

Some of us (= me) refer to William the Bastard & his lamentable victory over King Harold II Godwinson at the Battle of Senlac - but don’t go back further 🙂

Some Scots dislike hearing of “Queen Elizabeth II” - technically, they are (apparently) correct, as the 1707 Treaty is said to stipulate that regnal numbers should be reckoned anew from 1707.

I think we should start afresh from before Stinking Billy (the Norman vintage; not the Butcher Cumberland) & go back to scratch, reckoning 802 as the starting date for the united English Kingdom. Why start with the Norman invaders, as though the Anglo-Saxon kings before them were no kings ?

Ideally, Scotland would resume the practice of tracing the ancestry of the Kings of Scotland back to the Greek prince Gathelos, who married Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, & left Egypt at about the time of Moses. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle traces the English kings back further still, to Sceaf son of Noah, who was born in the Ark during the Flood (which is why Moses does not refer to him in Genesis).

As examples of proving one’s legitimacy, these are hard to outdo; it’s a pity that the question which is the title of this this thread can’t be answered quite so simply - though, the Magdeburg Centuriators tried something similar when they claimed that Rome, not Lutheranism, was the late-comer. Maybe that would be a way of getting this thread away from Luther’s person, & onto the issues he raised; because these in essence are still with us. “Discrediting” him, does not discredit his ideas, nor explain them - let alone refute them ##
 
As long as there’s a MacRae at Eilean Donan, this particular Scot is happy. 😃
 
Alot of people believe Richard was guilty of the murder (he was NOT), I have never heard anyone accuse Tudor Sr. of the supposed crime.

Try reading “The Daughter of Time” - it is an indictment of Henry VII​

Yes Edward V died a natural death and Richard III was his legitimate successor.

Whose heir was his son Richard (died 1550) - or so the story goes. It reminds me a bit of the “Harold was not killed at Hastings”, “Marshal Ney was not shot after Waterloo, but died in the USA” sort of story. Even more relevant (though not to this thread) would be similar claims about Louis XVII - there were many claimants to being Louis XVII.​

The supporters of Michael Hastings claim that Edward IV was illegitimate and therefore the Duke of Clarence was the legitimate king and his line is now Hastings. I don’t have alot of interest in English matters but Tudor Jr. is a particular point of contention with me.
WP
 
I think we should start afresh from before Stinking Billy (the Norman vintage; not the Butcher Cumberland) & go back to scratch, reckoning 802 as the starting date for the united English Kingdom. Why start with the Norman invaders, as though the Anglo-Saxon kings before them were no kings ?
You want to bring back the Bretwalda’s?? They already have one, his name is Blair! 😃
WP
 
No. That’s completely wrong. Most of the “Protestants” executed by other Protestants were “radicals” (Anabaptists and other miscellaneous groups/individuals who rejected mainstream Protestantism as well as Catholicism). And even there I’m pretty confident that more radicals were killed by Catholics than by Protestants…

…Some Anabaptists were executed (I’m not sure if they were beheaded or burned) under Edward VI, at least one Separatist leader under Elizabeth if I remember rightly,

There was a clutch of executions for treason (John Penry and his fellow-sufferers) in 1593; those executed died for the same reason as their Catholic counterparts: declining royal authority in matters of religion.​

and I think also some Baptists under James I.

in 1612 - Bartholomew Legate, & someone else​

I believe some anti-Trinitarians were also executed.

Henry burned Anne Askew in 1546 for denying Transubstantiation, and John Lambert in 1538 for the same offence. He disembowelled three Catholics and burned three Lutherans on July 30 1540 for treason & heresy respectively (having defined refusal to acknowledge Royal Supremacy over the Church as treason)​

However, as far as I know *no Catholic *was *ever *burned at the stake by a Protestant government.

I know of one - Blessed John Forest, who was burned at Smithfield in 1538. Henry had a reason (of sorts) to want to get rid of him, because he had been Queen Catherine of Aragon’s confessor; he had also given support to Blessed Thomas Abel & his companions (who were burned on July 30 1540).​

I think he proves your point, precisely because he is alone in having been burned ##
Catholics were of course executed by Protestant governments, and in England many of these executions, while officially for treason, were in effect for loyalty to the Catholic Church (More, Fisher, the Carthusians, and the several hundred martyrs under Elizabeth). I have heard that there were a couple such executions in Scotland, but I don’t know the circumstances, the exact charges, or the mode of death.

AFAIK, there were no more than about 20 burnings for heresy during the period down to 1560 - OTOH, people like Patrick Hamilton & George Wishart were sufficiently notable for the executions to attract attention.​

St. John Ogilvie (executed in 1615 under James VI & I) & Blessed George Douglas (put to death in England under Elizabeth) are the only executed Catholics I know of - destroying a religion by impoverishing its adherents by means of fines & exile has the same effect, but is less bloody. ##
I do not know of any Catholic ever being executed by a *Continental *Protestant government for reasons that could plausibly be interpreted as religious martyrdom (i.e., obviously someone who tried to assassinate a Protestant ruler or something like that would be executed as a traitor, but that surely doesn’t count). There was a massacre of Carmelites (I believe) in the Netherlands as part of the war for independence,

The 19 Martyrs of Gorkum, in 1572​

and there were a number of acts of violence, some of them lethal, against Catholic clergy/religious (and less often laypeople who were defending the Host from desecration or something) in France and elsewhere. So I am not denying for an instant that Protestants engaged in religious violence on a regular basis. But you specifically said burned, and as far as I know you are wrong.

Blessed Ignatius Azevedo & his companions were killed in 1570 by Calvinist pirates - but that of course is not burning either.​

If you have specifics that contradict this, please produce them. We are not talking about generic religious violence. We are talking about burning at the stake and/or a judicial execution where the formal charge was heresy, and/or a judicial execution where the charge was explicitly or implicitly that of being loyal to Catholicism. (In other words, there are three different categories of executions here–I’m saying that the first two were never inflicted on Catholics by Protestants, and I think–though I’m not sure–that the last was only inflicted on Catholics in Britain.)

Edwin
 
You want to bring back the Bretwalda’s?? They already have one, his name is Blair! 😃
WP

An effective Witan would be preferable 🙂 I wish our Bretwalda Queen Elizabeth (may she reign for ever) would rule, & turf out Tone along with his unpleasant chums​

 

An effective Witan would be preferable 🙂 I wish our Bretwalda Queen Elizabeth (may she reign for ever) would rule, & turf out Tone along with his unpleasant chums​

You will probably end up with “Miranda” Brown as yer Bretwalda once Tony has gone on his way. I think you should get on the phone and ask the Normans to come back before its too late!😉
I agree the Witan was much more honourable than the gaggle of rogues that sits in Westminster nowadays.
WP
 
Hey folks:

For your edification why not listen to “Myths about Martin Luther”, the Sunday night topic on Issues ETC., a Lutheran Church/Missouri Synod apologetics broadcast. It deals with a lot of the things that have been asked on this thread. Link follows:

kfuo.org/ie_main.htm

If that doesn’t work, go to the Issues, ETC. homepage and click on the “Listen Online” option on the menu. Happy Listening!!!
 
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